Hamden Man Gets 60 Years For Killing Aspiring Actress

Arnold Gold / AP

Matthew Pugh (right) seated with his attorney, Paul V. Carty, reads a book while the family of Alexandra Ducsay read statements during the sentencing of Pugh for murder and first degree burglary at Superior Court in Milford, Connecticut, on Monday May 11, 2015.

Matthew Pugh (right) seated with his attorney, Paul V. Carty, reads a book while the family of Alexandra Ducsay read statements during the sentencing of Pugh for murder and first degree burglary at Superior Court in Milford, Connecticut, on Monday May 11, 2015.

Matthew Pugh gets 60 years for the 2006 killing of an aspiring actress and musician he had dated.

MILFORD – Matthew Pugh, convicted in March of murder in the 2006 killing of Alexandra Ducsay, an aspiring actress and musician he dated, was sentenced Monday to 60 years in prison.

Superior Court Judge Denise Markle told Pugh he was "a danger to society," citing the brutal killing of Ducsay, Pugh's long criminal record and his harassment of her while he was in prison as reasons for the maximum sentence.

Markle also sentenced Pugh, a four-time convicted felon, to the maximum term of 20 years in prison for a charge of first-degree burglary to run concurrently.

Markle said threatening letters Pugh wrote to Ducsay, 26, from prison as she attempted to break off the relationship contained language "that was absolutely frightening." She said she believed he could not be rehabilitated.

In one of the letters to Ducsay, Pugh wrote: "What's really scary is that if you're not by my side, I pray for your ass big time. So if you don't start making time for me ... you're going to regret you ever met me." Pugh also told Ducsay that she needed to visit him at the prison and to "make time" for him or he would tell her bosses at a bank where she worked and family members about suggestive letters Pugh said she wrote and would send them provocative photos of her.

Alexandra Ducsay's family spoke to reporters following the sentencing of Matthew Pugh, convicted in March of murder in the 2006 killing of the aspiring actress and musician.

Alexandra Ducsay's family spoke to reporters following the sentencing of Matthew Pugh, convicted in March of murder in the 2006 killing of the aspiring actress and musician.

"I will destroy your reputation if you try and hide from me," Pugh wrote, telling her he would make her "life a miserable, living hell."

Ducsay complained to the state Department of Correction about the harassment, and Pugh was disciplined. But the discipline didn't stop Pugh, prosecutors say. After his release from prison in August 2004, the threats and harassment continued.

Markle said Pugh, who met Ducsay when she was 16, was obsessed with Ducsay. She told Pugh, "you were much older and you were an experienced man in life. She said he had committed "a multitude of domestic violence offenses well before the murder took place."

Markle told Pugh he disregarded society's rules and she questioned why he would volunteer while on the witness stand information about his lifetime of crime. She said he appeared "proud and confident in that role."

Ducsay's father, John Ducsay, traveled from his home in Florida to speak at the sentencing, telling the judge that his daughter's death meant not only a loss to his family but also a loss to the churches, schools and children she helped through charitable acts.

At the time of her death, her family said, Ducsay was working on starting a soup kitchen.

"In a world full of destroyers, she was one of the creators," John Ducsay said.

Ducsay looked at Pugh and told him his real judgment day was coming and that he would be forced now to think about his crime each day in prison.

"I will be in your head, in your dreams, agonizingly day after day," he said.

Prosecutors said that Pugh, 42, a convicted drug dealer who was in jail on an assault charge at the time that he was arrested in 2012 in connection with Ducsay's murder, wanted to kill her after she broke up with him while he was in prison.

The badly beaten body of Ducsay was discovered by her mother in Ducsay's bedroom in her Milford home on May 19, 2006. An autopsy showed she died of stab wounds and multiple blunt-force trauma injuries to her head.

Prosecutor Kevin Lawlor said that nine years after walking through the crime scene, the gruesome images are still indelible in his mind. Lawlor said the stabbing of Ducsay was so savage that the blade broke off and the beating was so severe that her face was unrecognizable.

Lawlor called Pugh a "loathsome and despicable person" who, a long time ago, chose to go down a road of crime.

"Alexandra Ducsay stepped onto that road and was run over by someone as merciless as this defendant," Lawlor said.

Ducsay's brother, Matthew, looked at Pugh and told him that the empty gallery behind Pugh in the courtroom meant that he was "a nobody."

"Once you're done rotting in prison, it's at that point when your sentence will begin," Matthew Ducsay said.

Throughout Monday's sentencing, Pugh read a book by Norman Vincent Peale and rocked back and forth in his chair at the defense table, rarely looking at Lawlor, Ducsay's family members or even his own defense attorney, Paul V. Carty, as they spoke in court.

Carty asked the judge for a 30- to 40-year prison sentence, saying Pugh could still be a productive member of society.

When offered a chance to speak, Pugh inquired about an appeal he plans to file.

Though detectives questioned Pugh in connection with Ducsay's murder, he was not arrested until 2012 after Ducsay was featured in a deck of playing cards the state distributed to prison inmates in 2011 featuring cold-case victims. Authorities created the cards in an effort to find information in unsolved cases.

At the time of her death, Ducsay was concentrating on a career in entertainment. A bank analyst by day, Ducsay was also a singer, dancer and actress. She traveled regularly to New York City for auditions and had a small role on the TV show "Law & Order."

Before her death, Ducsay organized toy and clothing drives for children, volunteer work that family members said they hope to continue in her honor.

Linda Ducsay told the judge that on Sunday she re-read a Mother's Day card her daughter gave her before she was killed.

"Thanks for believing in me," Ducsay wrote to her mother. "You made me the person I am today, spoken and unspoken."